Adams Family Correspondence, volume 11
r8 1796
Inclosed are Some Signal Accomplishments of Prophecies.
Be cool and discreet in your Communications of them.
No Such Person as Jasper Dwight is known to either of the Senators of Vermont. The Signature is thought to be fictitious.1
I have no Letter from you later than the Sunday after my Departure.
Major Butler has indeed resign’d.2
They kept back Paines Letter Several Weeks, presuming no doubt that it would not promote their Election. It appeared for the first, this morning.
I think, of all Paines Productions it is the weakest and at the Sametime the most malicious.— The Man appears to me to be mad—not drunk— He has the Vanity of the Lunatick who believed himself to be Jupiter the Father of Gods & Men.
There is a Dr Edwards here—a Relation of Mr Burr & Pierpoint Edwards who has lately return’d from Paris.— Perhaps he may be the Pensilvanian of whom you read.3
I can Say nothing of Election. I have recd to Day the Votes of New Jersey but know not for whom they are, as they are under Seal.
I am
The Feelings of Friendship excite a Curiosity to know how McKean will vote.4 By that I shall guess how Gov. Adams would have voted.
But I have Seen Friendships of S. Quincy Jona Sewall, Daniel Leonard—Gen. Brattle—Treasurer Grey and fifty others go away like a vapour before political Winds—and a constant Succession of Others go the same Way from that time to this, that I cannot depend upon any Judgment I can form from any Feelings of my own.5 No private Friendship would induce me to Spare a wrong Political Character. But McKean & Adams can never believe the Lies that are told. If they could vote against me it must be because they think I should not be Supple enough to the French.— I have known the Time when both of them would have been as Stiff as myself.
I feel myself in a very happy temper of Mind— Perfectly willing to be released from the Post of Danger but determined if call’d to it, to brave it, if its horrors were ten times thicker than they are. I have but few Years of Life left and they cannot be better bestowed, than 441 upon that Independence of my Country in Defence of which that Life has ever been in Jeopardy.
RC (Adams Papers); endorsed: “December 8 1796.”
While the enclosures have not been found, AA’s reply of 23 Dec., below, indicates they were pamphlets by Thomas Paine, for which see
JA to AA, 4 Dec., and note 4, above, and by Jasper Dwight of Vermont. Dwight was a pseudonym for William Duane (1760–1835), an American who became a political radical while living overseas. He described George Washington’s retirement speech as “fraught with incalculable evils to your country” and also criticized the president for the “deviation in the latter part of your administration from the spirit and tenor of your former professions, and the proper and true interests of your country” (Jeffrey L. Pasley, “The Tyranny of Printers”: Newspaper Politics in the Early American Republic, Charlottesville, Va., 2001, p. 176–178, 180; Jasper Dwight, A Letter to George Washington, President of the United States: Containing Strictures on His Address of the Seventeenth of September, 1796, Notifying His Relinquishment of the Presidential Office, Phila., 1796, p. 6, 42, Evans, No. 31315).
Frustrated with his inability to counter Federalist policymakers, Pierce Butler formally resigned his Senate seat on 25 Oct. (The Letters of Pierce Butler, 1790–1794: Nation Building and Enterprise in the New American Republic, ed. Terry W. Lipscomb, Columbia, S.C., 2007, p. xxxiv;
Biog. Dir. Cong.
).
Dr. Enoch Edwards was not, in fact, a close relative of Aaron Burr and Pierpont Edwards, both of whom descended from Congregationalist theologian Jonathan Edwards. Enoch was the son of Alexander Edwards, a wealthy Baptist from Pennsylvania (William H. Edwards, Edwards’ Genealogy: Timothy and Rhoda Ogden Edwards of Stockbridge, Mass., and Their Descendants, Cincinnati, Ohio, 1903, p. 6, 15, 16;
DAB
; Hywel M. Davies, Transatlantic Brethren: Rev. Samuel Jones (1735–1814) and His Friends: Baptists in Wales, Pennsylvania, and Beyond, Bethlehem, Penn., 1995, p. 92, 101–102).
Thomas McKean was elected as one of Pennsylvania’s Democratic-Republican electors and voted for Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr (Kurtz, Presidency of JA, p. 411, 413).
JA is referring to the political rifts created by the American Revolution. For Gen. William Brattle, Samuel Quincy, and Jonathan Sewall, see JA, Papers
, 1:xv, 4, 30, 253; for Daniel Leonard, see same, 2:xi, 217. For Harrison Gray, see JA, D&A
, 1:210–211, 212.
th1796
Captain Beal who is always attentive to the post office for me in your absence, brought Me on the Evening of the Seventh your Letter written at Stratford Novbr 27th, which is the only line which has yet reachd me; I fear you sufferd from the cold on the journey, for it has been unusually so, for the Season. the continuence of it, has frozen the Ground very deep. I fear we shall not be able to have our Hill ploughd this Winter. our people get Seaweed and wood. Vesey will remain with me only untill the last of Feb’ry. mr Bass is gone to capt Beals for Six Months. very fortunately there was an opening for him there, Tim having left them.
I am of your mind, that prices must fall Genll Lincoln who dinned with Me with his Daughter Polly otis Lincoln last Saturday, on their return from Boston, told me he had not heard such a cry for money,
442
amongst the merchants for a long time, that he thought there must be some failures. He mentiond having lately made a purchase in Hingham accidently at a vendue, of a House Barns out houses &c said he had no thoughts of its being Struck off to him, but that it would prevent his building, which he was about to Do for his Daughter in Law who was with him— the House & place he purchased was the one next to that of Dr Herseys & was formerly own’d by the Drs Brother, a Double House lately put in good repair with two Barns one quite new & an excellent Garden full of fruit Trees with Eleven acres of Land for four Hundred & 50 pounds.1 he observed that he could not build the House for that Money.
The Electors all arrived in Boston the Day before the Election and met, in the Eve their great difficulty was respecting a Vice President. they could not agree untill near Evening on the 7th you will see they were unanimous for President, 13. for Princkny 2 for Gov Johnstone of N C, 1 for Mr Elsworth.2 I am very glad that they were all in season, as it removes one Source of clamour, & the G——r might as well have let his Name have stood, as recorded his own imbecility by erasing it. we are told that the votes of Vermont will not be legal. we had the Same report respecting Georgia.3 I cannot believe untill I see it that the old Chief Justice will give his vote against you.4 I yesterday had the Washington paper of Novbr 16th there is a peice in it, dated Virginna addrest to the Electors of that state. it is a recital of the services you have been rendering Your Country for 30 years back. it is written with a warmth a zeal and an affectionate remembrance of them, beyond any other publication which I have seen.5
Beals says that Adets Note Does not make any great impression in Boston, that it is considerd as a mere Electionering Scheme. there is however mischief enough in it. I believe this as critical a juncture as any our Country has seen. John Bull will have enough to Do, to take care of his own Calves. he may make Love to us, but we know what value to place upon it. we understand matchs of convenience as well as Adets Chrocodile tricks. with England the questions
is a very Solemn one, and Parson West will be looking for the completition of the Prophesy according to his interpretation. If a very Serious allam, had not taken place, a Mission of so much pomp would never have been addrest to the Directory.
I have not yet, a Letter from N york. I hope you will give me some 443 infomation respecting mrs smith and Family as I have not had a line from her for a long time.
Mrs Brisler and Family were well yesterday.
Yours as ever
RC (Adams Papers); endorsed: “Mrs A. Decr 9. Ansd 18 / 1796.”
Dr. Ezekiel Hersey (1709–1770), Harvard 1728, a noted physician of Hingham, Mass., provided the original endowment for the Hersey professorships in medicine at Harvard. He had treated JA in the 1750s for general ill health, encouraging him to eat a diet of vegetables, bread, milk, and water with no meat or alcohol (
Sibley’s Harvard Graduates, 8:432–436; JA, D&A
, 3:269).
Samuel Johnston (1733–1816) was a member of the Continental Congress in 1780 and 1781. He was elected governor of North Carolina in 1787, serving two years before resigning to become a candidate for the U.S. Senate, in which he served between 1789 and 1793 (
Biog. Dir. Cong.
).
News circulated in Massachusetts that the votes in Vermont and Georgia would be declared illegal due to irregularities in each state’s voting procedures. The Vermont legislature, according to reports, had authorized electors via a resolution instead of a law and failed to act within the time frame required by the state’s constitution. In Georgia, the legislature had allegedly failed to obtain the sanction of the governor for the resolution providing for the choice of electors. Both stories proved false, and Vermont’s and Georgia’s electoral votes were duly counted (Boston Columbian Centinel, 7 Dec. 1796; Massachusetts Mercury, 29 Nov., 9 Dec.).
John Jay was not a presidential elector for New York State (Kurtz, Presidency of JA, p. 410).
The Washington Gazette of 16–19 Nov. reprinted an earlier article from the Virginia Gazette recommending JA for the presidency as “a strenuous advocate for the rigars of his country” and “one who regarded his wealth, his fame and life as the property of his country.”